Misery Loves Comedy Page #5

of what they're gonna say.

They're not even listening.

That's what comedians do.

You know, you walk off stage

and you're at the bar

and you're not magic anymore.

And then it's almost like when I would

walk off, like, the spell is broken

and then I realize I'm a f***ing

zilch and then they realize it.

They like, "Oh, God,

we allowed him to control us?"

We got involved

in a dangerous situation,

you know, doing drugs and then

being... just constantly working

and not dealing with it.

And the one thing

about Mitch that's weird is,

um, a lot of people view comics

as, especially someone that,

you know, dies tragedy, like...

tragically, like Mitch did,

and, um, you know, drugs, it

comes with all these thoughts,

and a lot of people think

it's someone...

Something about Mitch is he didn't

really have that kind of negative side.

In a f***ed up way,

it was almost was his downfall.

Like, I would say, "Mitch,

we can't do this anymore."

Like, and he... like, Mitch wasn't stupid,

it wasn't fun anymore.

Doing... doing

an opiate isn't fun

- after it isn't fun anymore.

- Right.

Who's the pumpkin chick?

Cinderella?

Whichever one... whichever one

that turned into a pumpkin,

like, that's what it's like.

I'm a f***ing zilch again, ugh.

I would come off stage

in Hartford, Connecticut,

or whatever shithole

I had done, you know,

and I was just drinking my water and

I'm still the same frightened idiot.

And I'm like, "I have to

go back on to achieve that."

Definitely a certain point

in my life where I was...

I was... I was

at ease most on stage

in front of strangers

as opposed to, uh,

being with anyone I knew,

I would just...

Not that I was antisocial,

I don't know, but I was just...

I looked forward

to getting on stage.

I was like, "That's where...

that's where I really can be loose

and have fun and, you know,

I just love doing that."

I mean, now I have a talk show

where I just talk to strangers

and people I haven't met.

A healthy person probably

looks around and says,

"It's a wonderful world

full of wonderful things."

And a non-healthy person says,

"I want people to think

I'm one of the wonderful things.

"I want people to be glad

that I live on Earth.

I need to hear it."

Rather than just think,

"Oh, isn't it wonderful

to have people like

that who exist to entertain me?"

You go to a place of, I gotta...

How do I become that person?

That someone else will feel

that way about me, you know?

That's...

that's what I guess separates

healthy people

from non-healthy people.

There's a protective element,

I think, that we all kind of

share with one another,

because no one knows

but us what we go through.

The insecurity and the,

you know, the childishness,

the... the gaping hole

that can only be filled with the love of

strangers laughter every 15 to 30 seconds.

That is something that unless

you do it, you don't know.

No manager knows it,

even if they're a real

astute, empathetic manager,

and there are such people,

no agent knows it.

I do this every night.

Every night, 300...

I work, you know,

250, 300 nights a year,

and so don't tell me.

- It's failure.

- Yeah.

I think, it's failure

is what it is.

And... and the whole thing,

all these 27 years of me

doing stand-up have been a fluke

and today's the day

that they all figure it out

and you walk out there and it's

the first time you've ever...

And you're never funny again.

Well, I think

everyone can be funny,

but not when they want,

you know?

That's sort of the trick.

Sometimes when people

want to be funny

and they try,

it's a little painful.

- But...

- But the fact that they can try,

that's the thing that

to me that dilutes it,

because when you're at a party,

nobody dabbles in dentistry.

But everyone can, if they want,

choose to dabble in comedy.

They can be horrible.

Right.

But they can at least do it.

That's true.

That annoys the hell out of me.

That's true.

Well, I meant,

I think everyone's capable

of... of being funny

at some point or another,

you know?

I think... And I...

Definitely, I think every actor

is capable of being funny,

I really do.

The first person from my real life

that made me laugh really hard?

Dan Rather, I guess,

is the first guy

who really made me

sort of have that...

that I-think-

I'm-gonna-throw-up laugh,

when he switched

from suits to sweaters.

When I did stand-up,

I always thought,

"I'm just some f***ing idiot.

Why would you sit and listen

to me talk for 20 minutes?"

I didn't have that confidence

that I could do some great

George Carlin monologue

that would inspire people.

And it took me another decade

to feel that in my movies

I could open up my heart

and tell people what

I felt about being alive

and that it was

worthy of being told.

And the moment I realized

that I can open up

and that it is okay to share

my way of looking at the world

with other people,

then my career took off.

I got to see Richard Jeni.

You know, I always loved Peter Sellers.

An early, early Peter Sellers.

You know,

or even Phyllis Diller.

Like, those kind of

threw me more than...

Stephen Wright.

Who gets on and is so quiet and withdrawn.

Dennis Miller's second special,

"Black and White."

Bill Cosby and whatnot.

And watching that master,

watching Johnny Carson

and seeing...

The Woody Allen movies,

and then

the Steve Martin specials.

Steve Martin.

I wanted to be...

The greatest stand-up with

the most weapons in history.

'Cause I thought then I could be the

right kind of Lenny Bruce funny.

And that's something that Adam Sandler,

like, really ingrained in me.

I saw "Spinal Tap," went,

"Who are these guys?

How come they're, like, making fun of

us in a way that's really accurate?"

And I went in doing

Alan Partridge,

there's a bit in it where

I steal from Michael McKean.

There's a scene where I say

something like...

"Who... do you think you are?"

And while I'm saying this,

there's a scene where Michael McKean...

when Christopher Guest comes in,

he says, "I've come to re-plug

your life support machine.

"I've come to...

We can re... do a tour of Japan."

Our single, "Sex Farm,"

was a big hit in Japan.

And he goes, "Oh, so you've come to

re-plug our life support systems?

"The...

f***ing nerve you display."

And... and I...

I use that sometimes.

When we first started

making "The Office,"

uh, I was walking down

the street with Ricky Gervais,

and Steve Coogan

was coming the other way

and I was very excited and

kind of... but slightly daunted.

Like, "Ahh,"

and I have this weird thing

when I meet people I admire

that I don't want to seem

like a fawning idiot, you know?

Like, I want to seem, kind of...

I don't want

to give them, like...

Be effusive and going on

about how great they are.

I feel like that

just will seem vulgar

or kind of ass-kissy

or something, you know?

And so I had this kind of,

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